


Rice-Flour Wedding Cake

by jalendavi_lady



Series: Night Vale: Recovering [3]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Asexual Carlos, Bisexual Female Character, Coming Out, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Girl Scouts, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Injury Recovery, M/M, Same-Sex Marriage, Trauma Recovery, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers through Episode 47, where it significantly diverges from canon. Last part of a planned trilogy.</p><p>Carlos's first Night Vale wedding was his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rice-Flour Wedding Cake

Carlos woke to the feeling of being alone and the sound of footsteps heading towards the living room or kitchen.

It wasn't all that unusual for Cecil to be up in the night, even before everything had happened. Unless they were injured, sick, exhausted, or medicated, most people who grew up in Night Vale dozed deeply instead of sleeping properly. Most seemed to have at least one period where they were entirely awake during the middle of the night, and Carlos knew for a fact that the mayor averaged three.

Once Cecil had mostly healed physically from his captivity at the hands of StrexCorp - although his strength still wasn't completely back - he'd returned to his old pattern.

He just didn't usually go for a midnight walk around the house.

And not when they needed to be up in the morning, dressed formally before lunchtime, and off to events in the afternoon and evening.

Carlos sighed, waited five minutes, and then followed him.

Of all nights for Cecil to be up and roaming... 

He was greeted by a single point of eyeshine from the couch when he entered the living room, followed by a meow.

"Morning to you too, Khoshekh," he yawned.

"Hey, Carlos," Cecil murmured in a mix of sleepiness, wariness, and that old wonder that he'd finally nearly lost.

Which would have been a normal thing for anyone else on a morning like this - "how am I so lucky to have ended up with you?" - but with all the emotional fallout since everything had happened, it probably wasn't the healthy response it could have been.

Carlos yawned before helping himself to the other side of the couch. "So, how many hours until your sister starts the official wake-up calls?"

"Maybe four."

"Which means Janice starts calling on her cell phone from under the sheets in three."

"Possibly." Cecil chuckled uneasily.

"Only possibly? Cecil, she's been trying to get us together in a permanent fashion ever since… well, ever since."

"She said something, after the rehearsal dinner. I… I don't know what she meant by it." Cecil looked very uncomfortable.

"Well, she was still acting the same towards me. And I don't see how that wouldn't change if there really was something going on."

Cecil nodded. "That's true. I just…"

The silence hung in the air.

"What did she actually say to you?" Carlos asked him.

"That she'd been thinking about what her father said."

Carlos felt very out of his depth. "Your family doesn't talk about him. I know he had to have existed, but other than that…"

"He was an outsider she met on a business trip," Cecil told him bluntly. "Fell head over heels in love. He never seemed to like me much, and then when Janice was five or six there was an argument and he was shown the door. And the city limit sign, soon afterward. I wasn't there when it happened, but I was told everything after he was long gone."

He leaned toward Carlos and Carlos put an arm around his shoulders. "This sounds like my description of the day my parents and grandmother disowned me."

Cecil shook his head. "It wasn't quite that dramatic. He'd gotten it into his head somehow that being taught I was okay could _make_ Janice _choose_ to be something other than perfectly straight later on. And he wanted the bad influence gone."

Carlos laughed, loudly, and he was very glad they'd found this house for rent. No neighbors across a wall to complain about it. "Cecil, you can't even make her help set the table at family gatherings. How in the world did he think you could ever…" He shook his head. "Even if that was functionally possible, you couldn't. Not her."

Cecil laughed a little. "He was completely wrong, of course. But if she's thinking about it…"

"So what?" Carlos told him with a shrug. "She's getting to the age of figuring out who she is and where she's from. She'll have to work through it sooner or later anyway. May as well be when there's a gay marriage about to happen in the family."

"Hmm." Cecil snuggled closer. "Remind me how I got this lucky?"

"Well, you see, when a young physics major gets disowned for some unauthorized after-hours dorm room experiments with his lab partner…"

Cecil started giggling.

"… he may tend to find himself researching things stranger than his father thought he was. And then he will naturally find himself in Night Vale, sooner or later."

They sat in quiet for a few moments, Khoshekh purring at their feet. Khoshekh really liked human feet. Carlos thought it might have to do with the fact that until that damned _thing_ that tried to kill Cecil had ripped him from his fixed position in the radio station men’s room, Khoshekh hadn’t had contact with feet.

"Carlos?" There was worry in his voice.

"What?"

"What happens if I don't get any better than this?"

"Then we just adapt. Same as we have been."

"That's not quite what I meant…"

Carlos sighed. "Cecil, I thought we'd sort of gone over this when we moved in. _You're_ the one with a proper functional sex drive, I'm the one who can be perfectly happy and satisfied cuddling for hours. When you're ready to try that kind of physical contact again I’ll be right here, and if you're never ready it's not going to drive me off."

Cecil chuckled. "That's not what I meant either. I meant what if I never manage to go back to community radio as anything but a guest host."

"Then you switch from temporary to permanent disability." Carlos shifted a bit. "I'm not dependent on grants anymore, remember? City government salary. After managing what I managed to pull, I think they'd rather have me officially on call than trying to scrape by and work on whatever I randomly hear about. And with what you did and everything… well, it's enough that we actually haven't needed to touch your disability checks for everyday expenses, and I can't see the town letting that change."

Cecil looked confused in the dim light. "I don't… I…"

"You don't have to be a _productive_ member of society another day in your life, Cecil," Carlos told him firmly, practically spitting that accursed word. "Not if you don't want to be. You can just sit here and mentor the interns on a volunteer basis and take care of your cat and snuggle with me."

Khoshekh concurred loudly, demanding said attention.

No one else had anywhere near as hard a time in captivity as Cecil had, and while he hadn't told Carlos details yet, Carlos did know that pressure to become a _productive_ member of their order of things had been intense.

Thusly the care taken to not risk the use of his eyes or hands.

And thusly the stress in all the disability documentation paperwork that pressure to work and become financially self-sustaining would more than likely send him into a tailspin he might or might not recover from back to whatever point he had already managed.

"I just have to be?"

"You just have to be," Carlos confirmed.

Cecil wrapped an arm around him and nestled closer sleepily. "I like that plan."

* * *

Khoshekh woke them up when the alarm in the bedroom didn't.

Then, only a few minutes later, the phone rang.

"Wow, she held off until dawn," Carlos commented with a yawn as Cecil walked over to the phone.

They both knew exactly who it was.

"Morning," Cecil said about as cheerfully as he could say anything before coffee. "Whoa, whoa, Sis. Slow down. I haven't had coffee. What about the cake?"

Carlos sighed. Transition to rice flour for anything that rougher grains couldn't manage in the absence of wheat and wheat gluten was still a tricky business. Wheat-based cakes were challenging enough.

He was beyond glad it was his soon-to-be sister-in-law and current de facto wedding planner having to deal with whatever was wrong with the cake.

"So they dropped a tier. Which one?" Cecil nodded. "Okay, at least missing the bottom can still look right. And they're making side cakes to match to keep the serving amount the same?" He combed through his hair with his fingers. A moment later, he laughed. "Right, if something didn't go wrong now… Okay, we'll talk again after we've eaten here. Bye."

He hung up the phone and turned to Carlos.

"They dropped the lower tier of the cake. Icing everywhere."

Carlos raised an eyebrow. "You usually aren't this happy about things like that."

"Old Night Vale tradition. Something must go wrong with every wedding."

"What happens if nothing goes wrong?"

"Then the marriage is what goes wrong." Cecil developed a sleepy but intensely happy grin. "This is actually going to happen. They dropped the cake."

Carlos got up and started maneuvering him into the kitchen. "Come on. Let's make you some coffee before anything else happens."

Cecil looked confused. "But the more that happens, the better the omen."

Carlos gave him a hard look. "Is this one of those traditions that starts with a story about the bride's mother being carried off by a pterosaur?"

"No. Of course not."

Carlos relaxed. 

"It was a thunderbird and the best man," Cecil patiently corrected.

Carlos sighed. _Welcome to Night Vale._

* * *

The rest of the morning went smoothly, including the quick lunch they grabbed before getting dressed.

Carlos had never considered that his grandmother's teachings of 501 Ways To Use A Soft Corn Tortilla would ever become so useful.

And then there was getting dressed, and the fine art of braiding the binding of the eagle feather he'd earned for what he'd done the day StrexCorp repelled the revolt into Cecil's hair (because what better day was there for a man to show off that he'd earned one and for his beloved to show off that he'd been judged worthy by someone who _could_ earn one?)

And then there was the escort to the newly rebuilt community center, because nowhere else had enough chairs.

And if the vows hadn't been repeat after me AND written down, neither of them could have managed. Chief Sleeps-In-The-Night must have been been used to it, because he eventually took over after Mayor Dana just couldn't keep herself from giggling along. Good thing he had a permanent license to do so.

After that, it was just going with the flow and wondering just how it was possible.

* * *

The cake, even the rushed extra to cover the crowd, was the best anyone had yet managed with rice flour.

They managed three dances before Cecil's legs finally gave out on him and Carlos had to practically carry him over to their table while very carefully making sure it didn't look like he was doing that, because Janice The Flower Girl and Tamika The Honorary Door Guard - complete with her own hawk feathers, each equal to Cecil's eagle feather in the Eastern Woodlands traditions where there weren't many eagles, and it disturbed Carlos that having someone with that title present was an actual required part of any traditional Night Vale wedding - were roaming the room with video cameras and who knew what might end up on the community television station evening news later in the week, especially once the Boy Scouts got their hands on it?

Janice noticed, lowered the camera, and came over to them for the first time the entire day. "Are you okay, Uncle Cecil?"

"I just got a bit worn out," he reassured her with a smile. "It's been a while since I've been on my feet this much in one day." He tilted his head a bit. "How are you?"

"Fine." She grinned. "I'm going to get patches out of this. Tamika and I went all over the handbooks. Digital Movie Maker's just the start."

Carlos laughed. "Just stick it next to the one for the cookie bonanza, all right?" he told her.

Funneling money to Tamika's not-so-merry band of schoolgirls through the cookie program - and enough of them had gotten camping awards out of it that it was perfectly legitimate and legal and worth a financial planning award for the girls who pulled that off - had led to a record-smashing sale tally.

"Sure thing," she laughed back. And then she got very serious, put the camera down on the table, and hugged him tightly. "Sure thing, Uncle Carlos."

He hadn't actually realized how much he wanted to hear that until he did. And that's when the tears started.

They only got worse when he felt a slender arm around his shoulders and heard Cecil's sister whisper "brother-in-law" into his ear just before she graced him with a very light sisterly kiss on his cheek.

No one had claimed him as family - not beyond Cecil choosing him, which was different - since…

Well, since.

* * *

Everything eventually wound down until it was just family, select friends, and the remains of the remains of the cake.

Which was delicious to the last rice-flour crumb.

Carlos was just beginning to consider how in the world they were going to get an exhausted and still touchy Cecil out of the building - since he was worn out himself, and his _sister-in-law_ had been up longer than they had - when he had an answer to the question of the morning.

"Cecil, I don't think you need to worry about what Janice meant. About he whom I shall not mention."

Cecil raised an eyebrow even as he took another big sip of his drink.

Carlos nodded with an eyebrow raised, signaling to Cecil that he needed to look behind him.

Cecil turned and promptly spewed liquid in a huge arc that promptly earned cheers and laughter from nearly everyone.

Janice looked like she wanted to hide under the table and Tamika, still wearing the hawk feathers she had most certainly earned, looked every bit like she wished she could earn another on the sorry hide of anyone who spoke against the way they had just been holding hands, leaning in, and smiling at each other.

"So, Cecil," Janice's mother commented lightly as she walked over, as if nothing had happened, "we haven't told a certain very special person about something." She sat down with them, leaned in very close, and whispered, "Would you like to help draft the 'Hi, your daughter's bi' letter when Janice decides she's ready for it? You know, after those awful things he said?"

Carlos immediately thought she ought to have gone into acting, because she was keeping her voice far more still and even than he would ever have been able to.

"Hell yes."

Carlos added, "Can we please stick one of the sheets in it that lists her as our flower girl?"

Cecil laughed. "Yes. We have to give him one of those." He waved Janice over. "So, your mother tells me your father is going to have more problems with you than he had with me?"

"Yes, Uncle Cecil." She still looked a little worried, but only a little.

Cecil hugged her. "Attagirl."

Tamika wandered over behind her. 

Carlos commented, "You do realize that this is going to cause at the very least one problem for you no matter how anyone reacts to it?"

Tamika looked like she was trying to hold her protectiveness in. "And that would be?"

"No one else in her family, other than he who will not let her consult him on the topic, has any taste at all in girls or women. Think about it."

Tamika was laughing like the fourteen-year-old she was a moment later, for the first time in what Carlos knew had to be a long time. _Probably will be a long time until the next time,_ he thought grimly.

* * *

Carlos had no choice but to carry Cecil inside the house. There was no way around it.

Which meant their first married hour alone after their escort drove off was spent collapsed laughing on the couch, getting the eagle feather off of Cecil before anything happened to it, trying to flatten the futon, and then they collapsed laughing together on that.

Because it was very clear wherever Cecil spent the night was wherever he was going to spend tomorrow as well. And while Carlos didn't mind the idea of a cuddling marathon - far from it - he'd rather it not take him out of easy talking distance when he was gathering food.

And then they realized their formal clothes were now hopelessly wrinkled. And that the sugar rush from all that icing was wearing off. And that it was getting pretty far past sunset.

Which meant the shoes got kicked off to whatever corners were most accessible and least likely to make something break. Carlos tossed his jacket towards the couch and it ended up sliding behind it instead.

Carlos had Cecil's jacket off one arm and nearly free the other when Cecil joked lightly that he'd envisioned having his clothes taken off of him on his wedding night a little bit differently.

Carlos caught himself with his hand halfway to the throw pillow on the couch.

The throw pillow that in another life would have been tossed at Cecil in another five seconds and caught in the air in six. Or would have lightly smacked into his face as he kept laughing.

Only that life wasn't here anymore. It was long gone. That version of Cecil was long gone.

It took a moment for Cecil to process the look on his face and realize what had nearly happened.

He reached up to touch Carlos's cheek with his hand, the cold of the ring breathtakingly unfamiliar. "I still trust you," he said softly.

Carlos smiled and shook his head slightly, then sighed. "I suppose I'd better grab sleep pants for the two of us, since no doubt someone from the community will find an excuse to make sure we eat lunch."

"No doubt." He yawned. 

By the time Carlos got back, Cecil had his belt and tie off and was actively snoring.

Images of the two nurses Cecil had put in the ICU immediately after his rescue ran through Carlos’s head and he decided quickly that leaving Cecil be and dealing with the additional wrinkles in those pants tomorrow might just be the safest option.

He finished getting ready, made sure Khoshekh already had a full food bowl for the morning, and laid down beside Cecil, who stirred slightly, seemed to decide that nothing was out of place, and settled back into sleep.

* * *

They both kept waking every hour or so, fidgeting with wedding rings whenever their sleep cycles brought them close enough to wakefulness to register that nothing had ever been _there_ before.

And then that would wake the other, and they would quietly confirm that yes, that had actually just happened. And then they would try to go back to sleep.

It took over a week for a night to pass any differently, and by the end of it Carlos was as capable of dozing through the night like someone born to Night Vale.

It took multiple cleanings, a steam iron, communal chanting, and an exorcism out in Cecil’s newly restored ancestral bloodstone circle before the wrinkles would come out of Cecil's formal suit pants.

Carlos took that as a sign that Night Vale was back to being what it ought to be.


End file.
